A Recipe for Awesome
by Tabitha Dornoc
Summary: ONESHOT. SORA/RIKU/KAIRI. Sora tries to find a princess of hearts ala Puss and Boots.


Originally written May, 2009. This fic uses the fairytale Puss in Boots as its framework, so knowledge of the tale can't hurt, but I don't imagine you need to know it to enjoy. :)

--

"Breathe."

"Yeah, if you say that one more time, Sora-"

"Your face is the same colour as your wine. Breathe." Sora was perched at the edge of the dais, carefully looking out at the crowd, away from Riku. Riku exhaled shakily behind him, and Sora had to swallow a smile. There was an appropriate comment to be made, now that Riku had followed his advice, but Riku was in such a mood he might take the jeer as an invitation to ignore Sora completely. And since ignoring him would lead to asphyxiation...

"Don't know what you're so nervous about, anyway. You like girls."

"Everyone likes girls," Riku muttered. He was slouched at the throne, chin resting on hand, eyes darting frantically about the ballroom. Watching. With suspicion. With paranoia, actually. "In the abstract."

"Yet out of the abstract, you don't like them? I should tell Kairi-"

"What we have here, Sora," Riku interrupted, his words clipped and short, as if his teeth were clenched tightly together, "is not Kairi. This is... It should be you up here."

"Hm." Sora leaned back on his arms, legs thrust out and crossed. He absently clicked the toes of his boots together, the vibrations trailing up to his knees. "You're more alluring, Kairi said. It's the bad-boy charm."

Riku growled. "Sora."

Sora shrugged in his _hey, don't look at me_ fashion, and did his very best to keep his face straight. "You wanna get this over with?"

"I want you to die."

"At your leisure, Your Grace," Sora mocked, stood and bowed. "La-adies," he called, twirling on his foot. He faced the crowd of women in silks, satins, and suede in various pastel colours, all tightened and stretched over bone and wire.

Off to the side there was a gruff cough. Sora swivelled to the cougher, and then said, "ah, and gentlemen?" The slap behind him was most certainly Riku's forehead meeting his palm. "Right. Um. Without any... ado whatsoever, actually... the Marquis de Cabrabas!"

Riku made a polite flick of his fingers that was perhaps supposed to be a greeting. When Sora sent him his meaningful _kick it up a notch, man_ eyes, Riku sent him a different sort of finger message.

"Despite evidence to the contrary," Sora began, _his_ voice now taking on the clenched and jaw-tight feel, "the Marquis _is_ charming. Also handsome, _rich_, and very much looking for a kindred soul to spend the rest of his days with. Ladies... and, er, Sir, back there, His Grace humbly requests the pleasure of your meeting."

Sora hopped backwards until he was beside the gaudy throne Riku was slumped in. "Kay, here we go," he whispered.

Weeks of planning, all for this single moment.

When they had arrived, all they had was the king's vague instruction of the world's wavering heart and a lost princess required to set it right. There had been an initial argument on why Kairi, being a princess of heart, couldn't just tweak this world's core and set it right on her own. An indignant Kairi had argued back until the conversation escalated into _you don't know anything about how this works_ and _I've been on way more missions than you_ and _I could find the princess in half the time it took you_ and _whoa, guys, calm down_ and _you're on!_.

Kairi was off in a huff somewhere, searching the world for a princess she wouldn't find. Because the princess was somewhere here, in this room.

Sora thought that Riku was either impressed or concerned about the ease Sora came up with the plan. Which was brilliant, by the way. How else to gather all the potential girls into one place so they could find her? This world was littered with royalty and titles. There was no single ruler, but many kingdoms that supported a monarch, a religion head, and an embarrassing number of lesser nobles.

Riku had been working on a rather complicated and scary formula to finding the princess when Sora had come up with this plan, so fantastic that it would require two people to carry out. And Kairi had clearly decided not to be one of them.

Sora's formula was so much less numerical than Riku's. It was a recipe for Awesome. Take one empty castle, one magicked village, and one pseudonym. Add a pretty face to the pseudonym (Riku!) and a likewise pretty face (Sora!) to draw attention to the previous pretty face (still Riku!). By preference, mix in eligible, marry-happy women. Pour into a Stunning Ball. Leave until princess rises to the surface. (Then get the hell outta there, and say _hah!_ to Kairi.)

"Um, Sora?"

"Hm?"

"They're rushing." Riku made a sound that flirted with the line between Frightened and Girly, hiked his legs up onto the chair and pushed himself as far back as he could. Sora glanced over, and, yeah, they were kind of rushing.

For a moment Sora remembered that battle at Hallow Bastion, with one thousand heartless blocking the way. His hands remembered the weight of his keyblade as he charged forward, his companions eagerly at his side. Adrenaline sharp in his mouth, in his veins, in his heartbeat.

This was nothing like that time.

Simpers and coos of delights all around Riku. Gloved hands that reached out and petted, patted, clung to Riku. _Pick me, pick me, pick me_, their hearts beat. Not good enough.

After the first dozen of girls, Sora gave up on being a gentleman. His hands gripped their shoulders, one by one, and quickly removed them from pawing Riku who... wasn't _quite_ in the foetal position yet.

"Not you. Nope. Not even close," Sora chanted, sorting through woman after woman. They huffed and cursed at being tugged away from the wonderful Marquis, the fabled Marquis, the insanely gorgeous Marquis that was going to marry one of them, and why can't it be me?

"Sora?" Riku's quiet voice, hidden and buried.

Girl after girl after girl. "Not yet," he called to Riku through the crowd. Maybe they should have gotten them to line up? Not you, not you, not you.

"Sora." Not a question. Not a demand or even a plea. A warning; Sora recognised the tone. Ah, the end of Riku's patience. The end of his willingness to go along with a plan that _had_ been made from the very recipe of Awesome, why wasn't it working?

"I can't find her," he admitted, still shuffling through the girls, and he could actually _feel_ the glare from Riku without even looking. He was spared the full brunt of the glare by a shout from castle's doorway.

"Yo!"

And did Riku really have to sound so grateful when he squeaked out, "Kairi?"

The girls paused, spinning to look at the newcomer. Because this was the part of the fairytale where Cinderella entered, gorgeous and new and captivating to the prince. Who had come in the eleventh hour to steal the Marquis' attention?

Kairi, hair in a tangle, face dirt-smudged but grinning. Kairi, who hadn't even bothered to world-dress, but was standing there in her too-big jeans and a thin t-shirt. Kairi, arm flung around a girl at her side who was looking around in obvious awe.

"Oh," Sora murmured in the silence. "I think we just lost the bet."

The girl by Kairi was not draped in the flutter of lace and jewels that all of Sora's collected girls were. Dark petticoat over crisp white dress, cut too short so one could see ankles peeking out from muddy damp shoes. Her hair curled down her back in one long plait, swaying a bit as she looked about. Not a princess, but absolutely a _princess_.

Sora could feel her pull from all the way across the ballroom.

Riku snuck from the throne and ducked away from the haggle of women in a move that Sora wouldn't be able to reproduce even with years of practice. "_You_ lost the bet," Riku grinned over his shoulder.

Someone poked Sora in the ribs. Hard.

"What's going on?"

"Yes, where's he going? He's supposed to marry one of us. You _promised_."

Sora took a step back. Stuttered, "Ye-ah. About that. Kay, you guys can go now."

"Excuse me?" one said, sharply. "Excuse me?" it felt like they all said. (Even the ones he had already dismissed; how was that fair?)

It would be a few years, in fact, before Kairi would admit that, hm, maybe she _did_ wait a little too long before stepping in. Maybe from the moment the first girl lunged and the moment Kairi grabbed Sora away, maybe the time in between wasn't completely spent in formulating a plan. Maybe, just _maybe_, she had taken a lovely moment to savour Sora's plot turning viciously and splendidly against him.

"I'm really not sure what this all means," the princess said in the somewhat calm afterwards.

Kairi laughed, patting her knee. "Join the club. Just do what feels right."

"Will I... Will I travel with you, too? Finding girls like me?"

"Wha- No. No. I only got stuck with that job cause of them."

Riku grinned, in much better spirits now that the number of women bent on lustfully attacking him was down to one, and even she was going to wait for that. "What one does for love."

"Grlaaagh," Sora moaned from his sprawl on the floor. The princess was looking awfully concerned, but Kairi's hand on her knee held her from truly worrying. Kairi knew this boy better, didn't she? Kairi herself had the grace not to laugh at Sora's _I've just been trampled by one hundred jilted women_ pain, but only just.

Riku just leaned forward and whispered joyfully and cruelly, "Breathe."


End file.
